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What is history?
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It is something written by the winners.
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There is a stereotype that history
should be focused on the rulers,
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like Lenin or Trotsky.
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As a result, people
in many countries, like mine, Russia,
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look at history as something
that was predetermined
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or determined by the leaders,
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and common people could not
influence it in any way.
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Many Russians today do not believe
that Russia could ever have been
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or ever will be a truly democratic nation,
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and this is due to the way
history has been framed
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to the citizens of Russia.
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And this is not true.
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To prove it, I spent two years
of my life trying to go 100 years back
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to the year 1917,
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the year of the Russian Revolution.
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I asked myself, what if the internet
and Facebook existed 100 years ago?
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So last year, we built
a social network for the dead people
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named "project1917.com."
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My team and I created our software,
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digitized and uploaded
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all possible real diaries and letters
written by more than 3,000 people
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100 years ago.
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So any user of our website or application
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can follow a newsfeed for each day of 1917
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and read what people
like Stravinsky or Trotsky,
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Lenin or [??],
and others thought and felt.
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We watch all those personalities
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being ordinary people like you and me,
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not demigods,
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and we see that history consists
of their mistakes, fears, weaknesses,
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not only their genius ideas.
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Our project was a shock for many Russians,
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who used to think that our country
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has always been an autocratic empire
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and the ideas of freedom and democracy
could never have prevailed
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just because democracy
was not our destiny.
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But if we take a broader look,
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it's not that black and white.
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Yes, 1917 led to 70 years
of communist dictatorship,
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but with this project, we see that Russia
could have had a different history
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and a democratic future
as any other country could or still can.
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Reading the posts from 1917,
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you learn that Russia was
the first country in the world
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to abolish the death penalty,
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or one of the first ones
to grant women voting rights.
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Knowing history and understanding
how ordinary people influenced history
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can help us create a better future,
because history is just a rehearsal
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of what's happening right now.
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We do need new was of telling history,
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and this year, for example,
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we started a new online project
that is called "1968digital.com,"
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and that is an online documentary series
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that gives you an impression
of that year, 1968,
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a year marked by global social change
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that in many ways created
the world as we know it now.
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But we are making that history alive
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by imagining, what if
all the main characters
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could use mobile phones,
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just like that?
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And we see that
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a lot of individuals
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were facing the same challenges
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and were fighting for the same values,
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no matter if they lived
in the US or in USSR
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or in France or in China
or in Czechoslovakia.
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By exposing history
in such a democratic way,
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through social media,
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we show that people in power
are not the only ones making choices.
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That gives any user a possibility
of reclaiming history.
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Ordinary people matter.
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They have an impact.
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Ideas matter.
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Journalists, scientists,
philosophers matter.
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We shape the society.
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We all make history.
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Thank you.
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(Applause)